PISCATAWAY, N.J., USA,31 March 2009 --
Driven by a lack of uniform scientific crash data needed to help make
vehicle and highway transportation safer and reduce fatalities, the IEEE
created IEEE 1616™ in 2004, the first universal standard for motor vehicle
event data recorders (MVEDRs), much like those that monitor crashes on
aircraft and trains. Now, as millions of vehicles include MVEDR memory
modules, new work has begun on an amendment -- IEEE P1616a™, IEEE Standard
for Motor Vehicle Event Data Recorders (MVEDRs) - Amendment 1: Motor
Vehicle Event Data Recorder Connector Lockout Apparatus (MVEDRCLA) -- in
order to help prevent data tampering, VIN theft and odometer fraud.

"IEEE 1616a seeks to enhance vehicle and highway safety by offering
methods to help secure crash data that can then be used to inform efforts
to improve consumer protection for millions of vehicle owners," says
Tom Kowalick, Chair of the IEEE P1616a Working Group and President of
Click, Inc. "This amendment expands the body of research that taught
us to appreciate the significance of MVEDRs. It is imperative that the
scientific data generated by MVEDRs is both credible and secure."

National Safety Council statistics show that motor vehicle accidents are
the leading cause of death in those of ages between 1 and 33 years in the
United States, making them the nation's largest public health problem,
causing a death every 12 minutes and a disabling injury every 14 seconds.
Worldwide, someone dies in a motor vehicle crash each minute, according to
the World Health Organization. Road crash fatalities have claimed about 30
million lives globally since 1896. Few of millions of motorists realize
that many modern vehicles collect crash data.

Since 1996,
many cars and light trucks come equipped with sensing and diagnostic memory
modules (MVEDRs). There are many types of recorders; some continuously
record data, overwriting the previous few minutes until a crash stops them,
and others are activated by crash-like events (such as a sudden change of
velocity or angular momentum) and continue to record until the crash is
over. MVEDRs can record whether or not brakes were used, the speed at the
time of impact, the steering angle and whether seat belts were worn during
the crash.

Kowalick notes, “Given the dramatic growth of electronic components in
motor vehicles, an estimated 60 million vehicles currently utilize MVEDR
technologies. Recent civil and criminal cases have included EDR data in the
body of evidence that is reviewed. The EDR data can be used as evidence of
crime or to hold drivers responsible for damages in personal injury
lawsuits. Numerous vehicle operators who were unaware that EDR data was
available, have been sentenced, based, in part, on the black box data
extracted from their vehicles.”

Ownership of MVEDR data is a matter of state law. Generally, the owner of
the vehicle is considered to be the rightful owner. However, courts can
subpoena crash data. This amendment to the foundation IEEE 1616 standard
seeks to help maintain data privacy, prevent tampering, avoid odometer
fraud and limit data access while enhancing safety.

Data Tampering: IEEE P1616a seeks to help ensure data integrity and
to help detect evidence of data tampering. Under current practice, although
crash investigation teams may properly collect MVEDR data, the integrity of
the data gathered may be questioned or there may not be a rationale for
lack of data (once erased). “Tampering” means to modify, remove, render
inoperative, cause to be removed, or to make less operative any device or
element on a motor-vehicle or motor-vehicle power train, chassis or body
components which results in altering federal vehicle motor safety standards
(FMVSS). IEEE P1616a is intended to help rectify this problem.

VIN Theft: A Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) is used to uniquely
identify a motor vehicle by specifying some of its various attributes, such
as its make, model and sequential number. Depending on the particular
format used, a VIN in North America typically consists of seventeen
alphanumeric characters (excluding the letters I, O and Q): three
characters for manufacturer identification, five characters for vehicle
attributes, a check digit character, a model year character, a plant code
character, and six characters for a sequential number.

To assist in the identification of vehicles and to help prevent vehicle
theft, VINs are typically affixed to different parts of the vehicle. For
instance, it is common to find a small metal plaque, a sticker or an
etching that bears the VIN on the dashboard near the point where it meets
the front windshield, on the driver side front door, on a rear wheel-well,
on the engine or on some other part of the vehicle. Placing the VIN in
these known locations enables, among other things, the authorities to
uniquely identify a particular vehicle.

Car thieves have been known to walk through parking lots or other
structures and record the VINs of non-stolen vehicles that happen to have
the same make, model and year as vehicles that they have already stolen.
The thieves will then replace the original plaques, stickers or etchings on
the stolen vehicle with new, authentic-looking ones bearing the newly
acquired VIN. This process is known as ”VIN cloning,” and it is intended to
allow car thieves to pass off a stolen vehicle as non-stolen. Telematic
applications are also utilized for transmittal of VIN numbers from a
vehicle. Electronic devices to alter VIN numbers plugged into the
vehicle diagnostic link connector aid in vehicle theft. IEEE 1616a is
intended to help rectify this problem.

“Odometer fraud is the illegal practice of rolling back odometers to make
it appear that vehicles have lower mileage than they actually do. This has
historically been considered a significant problem for the American
consumer. While any vehicle sold on the used car market could have been the
object of odometer tampering, the problem has been considered to be most
prevalent among late model vehicles which have accumulated high mileage in
a relatively short period of time.

Vehicles in fleets, such as lease fleets, rental fleets, or business
company fleets typically fall into this category. When sold on the used car
market, vehicles whose odometers have been rolled back, or
"spun," can obtain artificially high prices, since a vehicle's
odometer reading is a key indicator of the condition, and hence the value,
of the vehicle.”

IEEE P1616a builds on more than a decade of MVEDR research and development.
Major studies in this field include those by the Department of
Transportation (USDOT), the National Highway Transportation Safety
Administration (NHTSA), the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
(FMCA), the Federal Highway Works Administration (FHWA), the Transportation
Research Board (TRB), the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), and many of
the world's automotive, truck and bus manufacturers.

The working group that formed the initial foundation IEEE 1616 standard met
13 times in 2 years, drawing experts from industry and government from
across the U.S.

IEEE P1616a has potential benefits in many sectors, including:

-- Legal Profession: Those who are qualified to practice law will benefit
from the knowledge and understanding that MVEDR evidence is more secure and
has greater authenticity if the data is introduced in civil and criminal
cases.

-- Law Enforcement: Officials at a crash site will benefit from following
proper protocol that provides secure access to the vehicle diagnostic link
connector and establishes a chain of custody for evidence.

--Vehicle Telematics: Data protocol developed will enhance the ability of
connected vehicles in the process of interchanging electronic data.

--Consumer Protection and Privacy Advocates: This standard will help build
a foundation for safeguarding consumer interests to help protect vehicle
owners from misuse of data.

-- Automotive industry: Design data based on a large number of crashes of
differing severities will be provided. Also, the standard is intended to
provide early evaluation of system performance and vehicle design and allow
for the global harmonization of automotive safety standards.

-- Insurance industry: The standard will help protect data, and by doing so
help in identifying fraudulent claims, which exceed $20 billion annually,
and odometer fraud cases, which is estimated at 452,000 instances per year
by NHTSA. Also, the standard is intended to improve risk management,
expedite claims, decrease administrative costs, and give insurers needed
data to subrogate claims and recover expenses.

-- Government: IEEE P1616a should help in promulgating and evaluating
federal vehicle theft and odometer fraud standards, identifying problem
injuries and mechanisms, stipulating injury criteria, and investigating
defects. State and local officials should be able to obtain crash
information on problem intersections and road lengths.

-- Research: The technology outlined in IEEE P1616a should help those in
human-factors research better understand such areas as the man-machine
interface, crash and injury causation, and the effects of aging, medical
conditions and fatigue.

-- Medical providers: Those in the medical field will benefit from help
with the on-scene triage of crash victims, improved diagnostic and
therapeutic decisions, the ability to allow automatic notification of
emergency providers, and information that aids in the organization of
trauma and EMS resources.

-- The public: The data that is collected and secured by compliant MVEDRs
could help create better policies, and improve vehicle, emergency response
and roadway design. Other outcomes may include improved driving habits,
lower insurance costs, decreased fraud and reduction in the number of
crashes.

Volunteers are welcome to join the working group. Especially of interest
are consumer protection representatives, privacy advocates, legal
professionals, owners of vehicle fleets and rental car companies, and
members of academia. Contact the Chair at mvedr@ieee.org.

IEEE 1616 and IEEE P1616a are sponsored by the IEEE Vehicular Technology
Society.

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